DID KINK KILL THE ROCK STAR?

The girl friend of Michael Hutchence, who died in 1997, says sexual games and not suicide killed the lead singer of INXS.

Paula Yates told British television that, if suicide was his intention, the singer would most likely have done it in an orderly manner. Hutchence was found naked in a hotel room in Sydney, Australia, with a belt around his neck.

The New South Wales coroner ruled the death a suicide after hearing evidence that Hutchence had been depressed about a court battle involving Yates's three daughters by onetime Boomtown Rats singer and Band Aid/Live Aid organizer Bob Geldof.

But, as shown in a BBC documentary, In Excess: The Death of Michael Hutchence, Yates says Hutchence spoke to her about a technique called auto-erotic asphyxiation (AEA), during which the air flow during sexual activity is restricted to increase the intensity of the pleasure. "I told you he is a dangerous boy," Yates said on the broadcast. "He was dangerous, wild. He could have done anything at any time. The one thing he wouldn't have done is just left us."

She also said Hutchence would most likely have dressed, written a note, "as a ritual if he even thought of killing himself, which I don't believe he would ever have done."

The British online news service ITN News Online says a "leading authority" on AEA, Stephen Hacker of McMaster University in Canada, has backed the theory that Hutchence didn't kill himself. The news service says Hacker has stated publicly that Hutchence most likely died of an auto-erotic practice "gone wrong."

AEA, ITN says, is estimated to kill about 200 Britons annually